The four-body corrected fragment molecular orbital (FMO4) method was implemented at the second-order Moller-Plesset perturbation (MP2) level. A series of accuracy tests relative to the previous two-body and three-body treatments were performed. As expected, FMO4 provided better accuracy in total energies in comparison with the reference values by regular MO calculations. A nonconventional fragmentation by separating main and side chains in amino acid residues was examined for Ala-pentamer and Chignolin, where the four-body corrections were shown to be substantial. A large complex of HIV-1 protease (total 198 residues) with lopinavir was calculated as well. Furthermore, this new FMO scheme was successfully applied to adamantane-shaped clusters with three-dimensional bonding framework. (C) 2011 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.